Lyr Req: O Tempora, O Mores

Subject: O Tempora, O Mores
From: GUEST,Tom Brady
Date: 15 Feb 07 - 11:41 AM

A line from a song I heard years ago just bobbed to the surface of my brain, and, unfortunately, I can only remember the one line. I'd like to know the rest, so I can get the pesky thing to go away.

The line goes: "There was a jolly fiddler went a-walking by the Nile,
O Tempora, O Mores"

Does anyone know more than that?

Subject: RE: O Tempora, O Mores
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 15 Feb 07 - 03:18 PM

Sorry, the only people I've ever heard use that line (O Times, O Daily Mirror) are Flanders and Swann and it was nothing about the Nile.

LTS

Subject: RE: O Tempora, O Mores
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Feb 07 - 03:27 PM

It's the Latin for Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'be.

Can't help with the song though.

Subject: RE: O Tempora, O Mores
From: Cool Beans
Date: 15 Feb 07 - 05:01 PM

I heard it in music class a bajillion years ago, but can't remember a word. At least you're not crazy. Not about this, anyway.

Subject: RE: O Tempora, O Mores
From: bubblyrat
Date: 15 Feb 07 - 05:13 PM

It"s Latin for " Oh ! These Japanese deep-fried prawns are lovely ! Are there any left ??" I don"t know about being in denial,though.

Subject: RE: O Tempora, O Mores
From: Amos
Date: 15 Feb 07 - 06:27 PM

Oh, the times, oh the morals... a comment on intellectual shrimp and spiritual prawns.

But I have never heard the song, sorry.

A

Subject: RE: O Tempora, O Mores
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Feb 07 - 08:55 PM

I'd say "mores" is "customs" rather than "morals".

Subject: RE: O Tempora, O Mores
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 15 Feb 07 - 10:51 PM

Cicero was responsible for the saying, which I remember from Latin classes, two years of which were required in grades 8-9. Many years ago! I still have my old Latin Dictionary, in which I inscribed the date, 1939. Nowadays, students can't even speak English.

We translated 'mores' as manners, but customs may be better. Manners seems to have lost its old meaning.

Subject: RE: O Tempora, O Mores
From: Amos
Date: 15 Feb 07 - 11:31 PM

I think customs says it better.


A

Subject: RE: O Tempora, O Mores
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 16 Feb 07 - 03:08 AM

The title of the song is Lob der edlen Musica (Praise of the noble Music) by Emanuel Geibel (1815-1884).
The lyrics given at ingeb.org are not without faults; e.g. line 2 not marschierte (marched) but spazierte einst (walked once).

The song was written for an archeologists' congress.

Subject: RE: O Tempora, O Mores
From: Moses
Date: 16 Feb 07 - 07:07 AM

I heard this story, years ago:-

Teacher (introducing her class to the saying 'O Tempora, O Mores'):-
"Now Billy, I'm sure you must have heard your grandmother using this expression when she speaks of how times and customs have changed since her childhood"

Billy:- "No, Miss, I don't see my grandmother much, she runs a petrol station on the Outer Hebrides"

Teacher:- "O Tempora, O Mores"

Subject: RE: O Tempora, O Mores
From: Muttley
Date: 16 Feb 07 - 07:09 AM

The translation is indeed "Oh the times, oh the customs" - it's a lament that the newer generations don't have the dignity, breeding and honour of those gone by.

Muttley

Subject: RE: O Tempora, O Mores
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 16 Feb 07 - 07:22 AM

Q - I beg to differ. Limpit (aged 10) is doing latin at her school - they have a latin club and make up all sorts of excercises. It's partly Harry Potter who is responsible. His spells are sometimes in latin and the kids want to know what they really mean.

It's still necessary if you wish to become a doctor or a horticulturist.

LTS

Subject: RE: O Tempora, O Mores
From: Scrump
Date: 16 Feb 07 - 07:31 AM

But not if you want to get into Oxbridge (like it was when I were a lad)

Subject: RE: O Tempora, O Mores
From: Amos
Date: 16 Feb 07 - 10:52 AM

I woudl think a child motivated by the magic of Harry Potter would learn better than one motivated by the glowering disapproval of some wizened Latin teacher. I know not all Latin teachers are wizened, but mine were. Anyway, the tradeoff for more enthusiastic learning is of course that a child seeking to emulate Potter will only learn enough Latin to cast spells and read obscure alchemical tomes. "Omnes Gallia" will still mean nothing to them. They may learn more and better Latin, but they won't share the suffering of generations gone before, breaking the mold of traditional pain-in-education. Now, I have to ask, is that really fair?


A

Subject: RE: O Tempora, O Mores
From: Scrump
Date: 16 Feb 07 - 10:56 AM

a child seeking to emulate Potter will only learn enough Latin to cast spells

Good point. I wonder why the teachers at Hogwarts don't just cast a spell on the pupils to make them all experts in magic. Then they could all take the rest of the term off and amuse themselves playing Quidditch or whatever.

Subject: RE: O Tempora, O Mores
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 16 Feb 07 - 11:11 AM

Why do themselves out of a job and living quarters? Besides, the best lessons they teach are the ones that stretch the pupil and make them want to learn more for themselves and how to control themselves.

LTS

Subject: RE: O Tempora, O Mores
From: Cool Beans
Date: 16 Feb 07 - 12:06 PM

In the late 50s-early 60s, when I was taking Latin, there was a pop song called "Learning My Latin," possibly by the Maguire Sisters. All I remember of it is the first couplet:
Omnes Gallia in tres partes divisa est.
I'm learning my Latin, I'm passing the test.

(Don't hear it much today. O tempora, O mores!)

Subject: RE: O Tempora, O Mores
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Feb 07 - 10:16 AM

To Wilfried Schaum
Thanks so much for pointing me to the lyrics. I do speak German, and I may even have heard the song originally in German. In looking at the lyrics, the melody came immediately to mind, even after some 60-70 years. Memory is a wonderful thing.
Tom

Subject: RE: O Tempora, O Mores
From: Mrrzy
Date: 17 Feb 07 - 12:09 PM

I thought it was OTHER times, other ways- are we sure the O is O as in O Caesar, be great?

Subject: RE: O Tempora, O Mores
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 17 Feb 07 - 12:23 PM

I've never understood why there don't seem to be any Latin classes as such at Hogwarts, since it'd come in so handy. I'm sure they could find a Roman Emperor or Gladiator, perhaps in a painting, who could do the job admirably

Subject: RE: O Tempora, O Mores
From: Michael
Date: 17 Feb 07 - 03:12 PM

So it translates as 'These are the rigs of the times'then?

Mike

Subject: RE: O Tempora, O Mores
From: bubblyrat
Date: 17 Feb 07 - 04:52 PM

I think some sort of grounding in Latin is essential if one is to have any kind of understanding of the structure and origins of one's own, or indeed several other ( French,Spanish,Italian ) language /s .I can still remember being drilled, at age 11 ( 1958,Midhurst Grammar School )in the etymology of words such as 'agriculture', 'belligerent', and 'association'. Not that it did me a huge amount of good, although when a 'Nil Desperandum' situation arises, I prefer to use 'Aequam memento rebus in arduis servare mentem' , if only because it is much longer !!

Subject: RE: O Tempora, O Mores
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 19 Feb 07 - 06:52 AM

The lamenting of the decline of the good old mores maiorum is a topos always found in many literatures of the world.Just found an intersting discussion in a Persian text from Lucknow, about 14. century A.H.
It seems to be innate in most human beings.

Subject: RE: O Tempora, O Mores
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Feb 07 - 10:17 AM

It's not as simple as it often gets presented.

True, it's always possible to find parallel complaints from hundreds of years ago about how things are getting worse in any respect, but that doesn't mean it's all a subjecvtive illusionhwen people voice those complaints.

The ways of society go in cycles as often than not - things get all loose and that turns to messy, and then there's a reaction and they get all firm and that turns to rigid, and so forth. Libertarian parents have children who grow up to be authoritarian parents ,authoritarian parents have children who grow up to be libertarian parents - that's oversimplifying, but it summarises how it often works.

Drop into 1807, 1907 and 2007 in your time machine, for example.

Subject: RE: O Tempora, O Mores
From: Cool Beans
Date: 19 Feb 07 - 01:26 PM

I believe Juvenal (60-140 AD) complained a lot about them kids today.